'Misleading headline' gets Kit Siang bashing on the Net
DAP national adviser Lim Kit Siang said today he was shocked to find himself the subject of scorn on the Internet, with people coming under the impression that he had agreed to DAP joining BN.
DAP national adviser Lim Kit Siang said today he was shocked to find himself the subject of scorn on the Internet, with people coming under the impression that he had agreed to DAP joining BN.
DAP joining BN is totally out of the question, Lim said, and attributed the misunderstanding to a "misleading headline" by the country's largest Chinese language newspaper, Sin Chew Daily .
"I was scolded for nothing... People became confused because they read the main headline in red but they did not read the black sub-heading.
"This is the lesson for all of us and we should not give rise to such confusion. A lesson for Sin Chew , that in such a condition it should all be in the primary headline," he told a press conference at the DAP headquarters this afternoon.
The front page Sin Chew Daily headline in red says: "Lim Kit Siang: Can have coalition government with BN", with the smaller sub-head in black saying, "Condition: Accept Pakatan's election manifesto."
Lim told reporters: "I am not blaming anyone, I am just stating the series of events that gave rise to some misunderstanding and the immediate anger and shock in Facebook , blaming me for betraying the principles of the party and the people...
"... it came from the headline, which is an obnoxious idea that DAP wants to replace MCA - that has never been our intention.,"
Lim also described Sin Chew ’s publication of his remarks side-by-side on Facebook about DAP’s refusal to join BN and the possibly of Pakatan Rakyat’s forming a coalition government with BN to show that he had supposedly contradicted himself as “mischievous”.
‘Coalition gov’t and joining BN are different’
“To put the two together that I supposedly contradicted myself is mischievous because they are two different things,” he said.
While DAP is completely adverse to the idea of joining BN, Lim said he was personally open to the possibility of a coalition government consisting of Pakatan Rakyat and BN if the latter was prepared to first endorse Pakatan’s policy framework and manifesto.
“If they (BN) endorse, then I will raise it at the Pakatan council meeting, but if they refuse then discussions do not arise,” he said.
To prove that he had been consistent, at the press conference Lim played a video of his ceramah in Ipoh yesterday, where he had put forward similar points and received positive support from the people there.
“Whether at the press conference at the DAP headquarters yesterday afternoon or at the DAP ceramah in Ipoh last night, I totally rejected the idea of DAP joining BN to replace MCA.
“Our objectives since our formation 47 years ago has always been to fight for the rights and interest of all Malaysians, whether Malays, Chinese, Indians, Kadazans or Ibsans, and never just for the Chinese,” he said.
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